"For
the land's sake! I wish every rum-seller in the world could a heard her.
Well, her troubles is over, Mr. Birge. Now, what's to be done next?"

"Is she anything to you, Mary, except an acquaintance?"

"I'm thankful to say she ain't. If she had been I'd expect to die of
shame for letting her die in this hole. She's a neighbor of mine, at
least I live around the corner; but I don't know much about her, only
that her man comes home drunk about every night, and tears around like a
wild beast."

Which last recalled to John's remembrance the reason of his being in
that room.

"Is that her husband lying out there?" he asked, nodding toward the
door.

"Yes, it is. Been there long enough to know something by this time, I
should think, too."

"It seems to me the first thing to be done is to get him in here; it
isn't decent to leave him in this storm."

"It's decenter than he deserves, in my opinion, enough sight," Mary
muttered.

Nevertheless they went toward the door, and with infinite pains and much
fearful swearing from the partially roused man, they succeeded in
pushing and pulling and dragging him inside the cellar on the floor,
when he immediately sank back into heavy sleep.

"Isn't he a picture of a man, now?" said the sturdy Mary, with a face
and gesture of intense disgust.

"I would rather be he than the man who sold him the rum," her companion
answered, solemnly. "Well, Mary, have you time to stay here awhile, or
must you go at once?"

"I'll _take_ time, sir. Feelings is feelings, if I be poor; and I can't
leave the boy and all, like this."

"Very well. You shall not suffer for your kind act. I'll go at once to
notify the Coroner and the proper authorities, and meantime my mother
will probably step around. Shall I have this fellow taken to the
station?"

"No," said Mary, with another disgusted look at the drunken man. "Let
the beast sleep it out; he's beyond hurting anybody, and _she_ wouldn't
want him sent to the station."

* * * * *

"It was the most solemnly awful sight I ever saw," said John Birge,
telling it all over to his friend McElroy. "I never shall forget that
woman's prayer. It was the most tremendous temperance lecture I ever
heard."

"Is the woman buried?"

"Yes, this afternoon. They hurry such matters abominably, McElroy.
Mother saw, though, that things were decent, and did what she could. We
mean to keep an eye on the boy. He has great wild eye